Swaps! Swaps!

Have been involved in a few swaps lately which is always fun. Recieved the above bundle of goodies from Paula who I did a swap with through the Fat Quarter Swap group on flickr. Thank you Paula, I love Jan Mullen fabrics and those peanut butter cup chocolate! mmmmmmmm!!!

And spent last night cutting out all these 3.5 inch squares for a swap we are doing amungst the quilting girls on Essential Baby. Just a sneek peak for them!


Thank you for all the lovely comments in entering my 1st year blogiversary! Thats a great way to become popular, run a comp! :) My assistant drew the winner, Leah. Congratulations! Watch your mailbox!

Happy 1st Blogging Birthday to me!

Well its a year today that I started blogging! Here was my first post, all excitied about fabric choices for some squares! Not much has changed! :)

My first two comments were from Ingrid and Brazen. Who have become my blogging buddies along with lots of other lovely ladies meet out in cyber land. I love getting comments and checking out the little map to see where everyone has come from.

And to celebrate my first blogging birthday, I'm going to give someone a pressie! Leave a comment below and I'll get Grace or Milly to draw out a name on Tuesday morning. That should get the lurkers out from under the keyboard hey? Good luck!

Flashback Friday - Week 1

What a hoot! Welcome to Flashback Friday! I visitied a few blogs last week to come to this blog here, to find Flashback Friday. An idea started where on a Friday you post a photo of yourself before 1985. So here is my first picture.


My brother Scott and I in 1981 according to Nan's writing on the back. We are standing in the front yard of Nan and Grandad's house in the northern surburbs of Perth. I remember the feel of this frock, a sythetic lyrca, it drip dried in like 10 minutes and I thought it was the coolest frock ever! The neck line was elastic so I could wear it like above or to be extra chic, pull it down to show some shoulder! And the look is tied up nicely with the mullet hairdo! *sigh* To be 10 again!

Work In Progress Week 28 - Boring Binding

Word of the week here straight from Miss Grace "I'm 4 and a big kindy kid" is boring. Everything is boring, said in a whingy tone saying watch out when I'm 13! And so that describes exactly todays WIP! Boring old binding!

I have two projects on the go. Doing the binding of Elliott's pinwheel quilt, below. I have three sides done. And also the dissappearing 9 patch started last week. I have finished all the quilting on this, amazing how fast it all falls together when you don't do "fancy" quilting! Also I have overlocked the edges of the quilt once the binding is attatched, which so far seems to help the edges lay flat. Either that or I am being a bit more careful with my measurements. I ended up going for a yellow binding too on this one as didn't have anything suitable in the dark blue department.

Friday Sewing Bee

Last "official" day of school holidays here and so what does a girl do? Pack the children and the sewing machine in the car and drive 30 minutes to her sister's house to have a sewing day! I got a whole heap done on the Dissappearing 9 Patch quilt which was fantastic. I am loving working on this one at the moment, its coming along nicely. Thank you all for your lovely comments about it in my last post too. Like any blogger, I love getting comments, its such a buzz to know somebody out there reads!

So here we are, Andy is plowing through her raggedy edges quilt for Cate's bed. We had a helper "Little Black Cat" who kept lying on my work and I am not a cat person, I had to keep poking him to make him move! We had a lunch break where we went to Textile Traders where I got some fabric "just because" but I also picked up some quilters masking tape which I have never used before but is just perfect for a guide for me to do the border of this quilt. Just simple lines about 1.5 cms apart. Time to start thinking about the binding colour..... yellow or dark blue?

WIP Wednesday - Week 27 - The Dissappearing 9 Patch

Well I promised myself awhile back that I wouldn't make any more baby quilts for my cyber friends as I feel like bit of a baby quilt making machine and I have this to finish and this as well. But a girlfriend had a baby boy yesterday, and I have been lurking in the dolls quilt swap in flickr admiring the work and stumbled across this quilt here, and thought wow, what a stunning and quick block to make, the Dissappearing 9 Patch! So that sent me to the sewing room to cut up 54 3.5 inch squares in blue and green. Fortunately I was babysitting my 2 nephews and neice yesterday so with 5 children running amuck in the house I actually got quite a bit of sewing done.

So above I have all the squares sewn into the 9 patch blocks. And then below here are the same squares cut in half and twirled around.

And then once I had sewn all the blocks back together, I added a 1.5 inch peep border of yellow to frame it, then a wide 5.5 inch border after that. So here it is ready to be sandwiched and quilted! Turn around time from starting to cut the squares to now, about 28 hours! And I even managed to clean the bathroom and do some washing in that time! Must have had my super quilter cap on! :)

Matildas Door Hanging

Those clown masks have been scaring me for the last few days every time I opened my blog. I wasn't going to post till Wednesdays WIP update but I can't wait that long!

Here is a wall hanging I made for Matilda's door back in early 2005. Look at the difference from Grace's one done in mid 2003 here! This is from a Hot Possum's pattern. AJ recently finished one here and wasn't too happy with the face so I said I'd post some picts of how I did mine. Not that I am an expert, just nice to see how other people do it.

I have to add another one of these to my to do list for Christmas, as I have made every child one in my Mothers Group and regularly readers of my humble blog will know that we have just had a new addition, baby Caitlin, so I'll have to sew her one so she's not left out, which will be a joy as I love sewing these.

Circus Sunday!

We went to the circus today! Complete with clowns, ponies, flying trapeze artists, juggling and lots and lots of cheap merchandize to go with it! We went with one of Grace's friends from kindy, here they are hamming it up with their scarey clown masks.

We had been looking foward to it for the last two weeks and now after two hours of watching and clapping, its all over. The anticipation is worth more than the actual event at times. Feel a bit flat now the day is over, maybe I am just coming off my sugar and fairy floss high!

WIP Wednesday Week 26 - Overlocked Edges

Week 26? Does that mean we are half way through the year?? And I haven't even looked at this quilt which I had promised myself would be done this year.

Okay, BOL progress. Well I echo quilted around the hearts and it looked bad, real bad. All wobbly and uneven, I suppose using a verigated thread didn't really help so in some areas there was a light pink on a deep purple background which really stood out. Would have been okay if it was all graceful and smooth. So I unpicked it all and decided to go for an all over meandering stipple with a few lovehearts thrown into the design as I went. Looks better.

I am going to leave the dark purple border just plain and do the same meandering stipple in the red squares only of the outside border. But I wanted to show this picture, look at the edges, they are overlocked!! I had huge deliemas recently with the edges of my last quilt being wavy so when I requested some advice from the SCQuilter ladies, one lady suggested overlocking the edges of the quilt, before you sew the binding on. Hmmmmmm, interesting! So I measured and marked it last night and then dragged out the overlocker. Since this photo I have added the binding and it does nicely sit down, so maybe it will work. Or maybe I have been a bit more attentive with my meausring and pulling the fabric taunt as I sew the binding on?? I guess I should know by the weekend.

Sew Along - Raggedy Edges Part 2

Welcome back to the raggedy edges quilt sew along! Okay, all the steps on cutting and preparation are in this post here. I didn't take any action shots when I was sewing the squares but below is a shot of all the squares for one row joined together. The easiest way to do this is by chain piecing "feeding them through the sewing machine one after another, but without breaking the threads after stitching each pair." When you have done them all one way, cut the thread between each square and sew on the other diagonal line.


So now we have a lovely cross on each of our squares. We now want to place two squares each with the backing fabric sides together, pin them and now sew about a cm in from the edge. Again you can chain peice these. I have drawn a rough wonky white line below where you would sew. Wouldn't worry about being terribly accurate here as you are going to trim the edges here later to make them raggedy. I use the wadding inside as a guide.


And then when you have sewn theme together, you then do the same again, till all the squares make one long strip! Do that so you have all your strips required to what size you want your quilt to be.

I did start this project hoping to just add on another strip to the above quilt, but I'm thinking now I might just make a whole new one!

Kindy Hanger Completed!

Well I impressed myself, I finished hand sewing the binding on this last night at 1.03am! I have more to say about it but Daz just arrived home from work, so I'll waffle here later!

Okay, back again! Just had to put my attentive, no I haven't been at the computer face on for the dearest husband! LOL But lets talk about sewing related matters, the kindy hanger! Grace loved it, she thought it was wonderful, she giggled and pointed to herself and said "Thats me! And there is......." and pointed to everyone else in the class. We brought a nice little gift bag and folded it up in there to present to Mrs K. "Have a lovely holiday Mrs K" said Grace, Mrs K was at first a little taken back as I don't think getting end of term 2 pressies is the norm, but then she was suprised and a bit touched too. Said it was lovely, just lovely and how bright and colourful it was. It was a nice spur of the moment present to whip up for her and her assistant, they do so much for the kids and Grace just loves kindy. Have to put my thinking hat on for what to whip up for the end of the year! So now, that is over, must get stuck into my BOL quilt, the deadline is ticking down to get that one finished by.

WIP Wednesday - Week 25. Just a quick wallhanging...

Wednesday again! I really need to consult my list as this little project has managed to slip in and is taking up todays sewing time!

Yesterday was dress up day at Grace's kindy to celebrate end of term 2 on this coming Friday. Unfortunately Kerry's princess frock arrived just too late otherwise she would have worn that, so she went as Sleeping Beauty instead. Took a heap of photos of the class and then yesterday afternoon I decided to whip up a quick wall hanger to say thank you to the teacher and her assistant for all the work they put in with all the kids in the class. Grace is the one in pale blue and white on the left of Batman!


So I printed the above out on some Celcast paper, ironed it to some white homespun, then started to sew some 1 inch strips around it and accidentally let the iron touch the image which resulted in it peeling away! ARGGGG!!! I'll bind this one later and let Grace keep it to hang in her bedroom. So onto version two....

Made this one a bit bigger and so far so good, haven't let the iron touch the surface of the image again, I used a sheet of baking paper to protect it. I have used vliesofix to put the letters on and blanket stitched around them. Have to attach these two bits to the photo panal, then brighten it with a hot pink border, then maybe some blue hanging tabs? I have till 12.30 Friday lunchtime....

Dress Up Swap Recieved! Thanks Kerry!!

Well I had a lovely suprise this afternoon when we came home from my folks house after lunch. There was a parcel on the doorstep, our dress up swap from the EB Sewing Girls had arrived! Now I had no idea who it was from but as soon as I saw Woy Woy on the postmark stamp, I knew it was from the lovely Kerry!

Look what she has made the girls! They are so pretty! Two princess outfits complete with puffy sleeves and a built in cape and beading on the bodice! They are really lovely, very well made too Kerry, you clever thing! And the girls love the little box of princess accessories! Earings, a dress ring, two braclets and some high heeled glass slippers! Thanks so much Kerry, you have made two little girls very happy today.

Day Care, Dentists, Tears and some Micheal Miller.

What a day! This is going to be a self pity post. Bare with me....... Today is the girls first day at Day Care, well not their first first as they used to do FDC, but the first at this particular centre. I drop Grace at kindy and then take Milly and then they pick up Grace from kindy and take her there, leaving my whole day free. Which should be a good thing right? So why am I all getting all teary as I'm walking in with Milly? And then as we sat on the mat and joined in singing some nursery rhymes, why am I sitting there singing Incy Whincy spider with a tear rolling down my check? Silly Helen. It's cause the other side of my brain is thinking what are you doing leaving her here with these strangers? Hopefully she'll love it, I know she'll be okay when Grace arrives from kindy.

Then to celebrate my day of freedom, what do I do? Go to the dentist! Its been literally years since I have been, I hate dentists, hate the smell, hate the sound of the drill, hate the pain, yuck, yuck, yuck! But a few weeks ago when I was trying to get some food out of my teeth that was stuck inbetween, a chunk of tooth fell out so thought I better go for a check up. So two X rays later and some proding later, I am presented with the news that I need a root canal and also two crowns. :( The good news was that only 2 of my teeth need work, the rest are okay which isn't so bad as I had visions of like 10 fillings. But a root canal?? Aren't they really painful?? And the crowns! $$$$$$$ So I came out of there and sat in the car, rang Daz and burst into tears again. My next appointment is on the 16th.

Before I went to the dentist I went to my 4 local fabric shops searching for this red Fossil Fern that I need to finish my BOL quilt. Nothing, absolutely nothing! So I'm going to Mum's tomorrow and I'll search her stash, if not I'm taking Atet's idea and introducing another colour. Whats a girl to do?

And to end on a sewing note, kind of..... I finally got this fabric in the mail today, a win off ebay. The seller stuffed up and only sent me a one FQ when I actually won two, so she apoligized and sent me a half yard as well as the first FQ, so I got one for free. Its a Micheal Miller print, nice and summery for spring. Bring on spring actually, am tired of this grey weather and hopefully I will have beautiful teeth then.